Monday, July 27, 2015

Who knew that I’d be using the Sunday night series on HBO, True
Detective, as a jumping-off point for a post?

It’s even more amazing that
it would be dialogue from the show that would trigger thought, considering that Rolling Stone
described the dialogue from this year’s season as

“sounding cribbed from a
video game cut scene.”

The catalyst was an event
from this past Sunday’s episode in which

Vince Vaughn’s character, Frank
Semyon, visits the widow of one of his henchmen, killed in the line of duty.

He pulls the bereaved young
son aside after learning the boy is inconsolable over his father’s death. In an attempt to comfort him, he says:

“Sometimes a thing happens, splits your life. There's a
'before' and 'after,'" says Frank to the kid. "But if you use it
right — the bad thing — you use it right and it makes you better. Stronger.
Gives you something most people don't have."

My life has
happily been free of murderous thugs wanting to off members of my family.

And yet when I
look back, those milestone are there, moments so defining that a big, wide line
divides everything into the before and after that Vaughn’s character speaks of:

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

At 9 am on Monday I wheeled old
Betsy into the garage I frequent
for her latest oil change and settled into one of the couches in their waiting
room. (I’ve written about this spot before:Waiting Room Heaven)

Saturday, July 18, 2015

I was paying my Kohl’s bill today – you know the place:
coupons of 10, 20,30% off that constantly appear in your mail, a perpetual
massive sale, and “Kohl’s cash,” the purpose of which is to bring you back to
redeem it a week later.

Friday, July 10, 2015

Today I rediscovered the truth of the
premise that nothing learned is ever really wasted. I had the arms of my chair
in a death grip as I breathed in and out, trying to focus on some other body
part in an attempt to return to the Lamaze breathing exercises of almost 42
years ago. My dental hygienist Jenn – whom I honestly like when she doesn’t
have an implement in her hand – was cleaning my teeth. She was employing that
tool of Satan, the waterpik, which shoots sub-arctic water beneath my gums.

This would all be perfectly fine if I
didn’t have :

a pain
threshold lower than a nine-day veteran of the Iron Maiden

aging gums
that have rolled up like 8 pm small-town sidewalks.

aging teeth
with more cracks than a pre-Civil War house foundation.

By now she knows who she’s dealing with,
and bless her heart, she

numbs
my entire mouth before approaching me. Still, we have the
occasional exciting moment when she hits a live wire in a tooth and I suddenly
levitate an inch or two above the chair while water is sprayed liberally over
both of us.

Today while I waited for the next
inevitable jolt of pain, I tried to transport my mind somewhere else. This time
I not only employed the breathing exercises that brought my now-41 year-old son
into the world (deep breath, release slowly, focus on my left knee cap or pinky
finger), but I also threw in a few butt clenches and Kegel contractions.

I figured I might not have any control
over the events in my mouth, but at least I’d come away with a firm derriere
and a decreased chance of incontinence.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

I
was running a tad late the other morning, caused as usual by a few too many
minutes in front of what a non-techno friend calls “the machine”, aka my
computer. Amazing how it can suck up time like a chamois on a wet car.